I, for one, am shocked...SHOCKED...that the same people who don't believe in evolution or human influenced global climate change have decided they do not believe in bad polls.
The only thing keeping these jackasses from finding a "comet-spaceship" and putting on workout suits before they eat their laced pudding cups is the fact that they can make money feeding off the gullibility of others and that if you are right-wing enough there will ALWAYS be a market to sell your bullshit.

Mr. Romney’s team has concluded that debates are about creating moments and has equipped him with a series of zingers that he has memorized and has been practicing on aides since August. His strategy includes luring the president into appearing smug or evasive about his responsibility for the economy.

Oh, I feel kind of back for picking on Mitt's dad with that crack -- because Mitt's dad George seems like he'd be a pretty decent modern Democrat -- but what is politics and certainly blogging if not a chance to notice statements like this?

Ann Romney's biggest concern if her husband becomes president would be his ability to maintain his "mental well-being," she said in an interview Thursday with KTVN in Reno, Nev.

Dallas Morning News:
"For all the talk about whether Mitt Romney should distance himself
from George W. Bush -- and the policies of the last GOP White House -- a
new survey shows that the former president actually has better
favorability ratings than the Republican nominee."

The most recent Bloomberg poll shows Bush with a 46% to 49% favorable rating as compared to Romney's 43% to 50%.

Bush's "favorability" rating undoubtedly went higher the moment he was no longer "the decider".

The arms race in CEO pay doesn’t help performance or retention, according to a new study.

Outsized
CEO pay has been a bone of contention for shareholders and a flashpoint
for public discontent, but was always justified with the conventional
wisdom that if a company doesn’t pay its top brass top dollar, they’ll go somewhere where they can earn more.

Charles
Elson and Craig Ferrere, director and fellow, respectively, at the John
L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of
Delaware, took aim at this long-held theory in a new paper, as reported by the New York Times last weekend.

Michele Bachmann is hardly the only politician who stretches the
truth, or even outright lies, but even among them she is among the most
voluminous liars in recent history. An author of bullshit in Asimovian proportions.

Jim
Drinkard, an Associated Press (AP) editor who oversees the wire
service’s fact-checking work, said, “We had to have a self-imposed
Michele Bachmann quota in some of those debates.”

After
the session, Drinkard said that there wasn’t an actual numerical quota
on Bachmann at the AP. It’s just that if the AP had gone back and vetted
all her claims that looked dicey, the result would “overload” the
debate story.

Truly a great achievement in both politics and journalism.

Hard
to believe the Party that has perfected denying evolution, global
warming, and scientific polling has taken fabrication to a delusional
level.

Bachmann, by the way, is actually in an actual of battle
for her seat this year against Democrat Jim Graves who to my knowledge
lies no more than an average politician, perhaps even slightly less,
feel free to donate in the name of far less crazy and a normal level of fabrication.

The
top reason Adelson gave for backing Romney and opposing President
Barack Obama is "self defense," as Allen put it, referencing the probe
into Las Vegas Sands Corp.

"Adelson
said a second Obama term would bring government 'vilification of people
that were against him.' He thinks he would be at the top of that list
and contends that he already has been targeted for his political
activity," Allen wrote.

Adelson's casino
empire, the bulk of which is based in Asia, is being investigated for
bribery and money laundering. He told Allen that Justice Department
officials have been disparaging him in the press. "When I see what's
happening to me and this company, about accusations that are unfounded
-- that kind of behavior ... has to stop," he told Allen.

So he's buying Mitt and expects him to stay bought.

Well, that makes you feel great about democracy, eh? Good job Supremes.

Police will be taking soil core samples at a home in Roseville [Michigan] on Friday in search of the remains of missing Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, whose 1975 disappearance sparked one of the 20th century’s biggest mysteries.
“We received information from an individual who saw something,” Roseville Police Chief James Berlin told the Free Press. “The information seemed credible, so we decided to follow up on it.”

To restrict more voting rights for the poor and any minority that may vote Democratic.

One of the four former staffers charged in a petition fraud scandal that ended U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter's congressional career pleaded no contest Tuesday in court.Lorianne O'Brady, 52, of Livonia pleaded in 16th District Court to five misdemeanor counts of falsely signing a McCotter nomination petition as a circulator. She's to be sentenced Oct. 25 before Judge Kathleen J. McCann. Each count is punishable by up to 93 days in jail...Candidates must collect at least 1,000 valid voter signatures; McCotter's staffers claimed to have turned in 2,000, but just 244 were deemed valid due to forgery that was later found in previous election petitions as well.

Three other former McCotter staffers face felony charges for similar behavior and one of them is in court today.
So far this kind of voter fraud seems to be the only type that occurs, yet also the only one that doesn't exist in the mind of Republicans.
It's enough to make you angry. So here's something to take your mind off of the subject.
Mitt Romney talking about the sex-life of teenage boys.
You're welcome.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

I'm not Catholic, but one thing I know from knowing some Catholics is that if there's one thing that will cause them to support something its their loudest and most bullying clergy taking a position -- followed by them taking the opposite because who wants to listen to those assholes?

President Obama’s support among Catholic voters has surged since
June, according to a new poll, despite a summer that included the
Catholic bishops’ religious freedom campaign and the naming of Rep. Paul
Ryan, a Catholic, as the GOP’s vice-presidential candidate.

On June 17, Obama held a slight edge over Mitt Romney among
Catholics (49-47 percent), according to the Pew Research Center. Since
then, Obama has surged ahead, and now leads 54-39 percent, according to a
Pew poll conducted on Sept. 16.

Among all registered voters, Obama leads Romney 51-42 percent, according to Pew.Obama and Romney are essentially tied among white Catholics, which some pollsters call the ultimate swing group.

I know a little golf history, and there's a pretty solid argument that Jack Nicklaus is the best golfer of all time (but a good counter argument it's Bobby Jones, Walter Hagan, Harry Vardin, Sam Snead, or Ben Hogan...oh yes, that Tiger Woods fella too).

But that's not enough for "sports historian and ultimate white guy" Mitt Romney, who really needs that "Rich White Guy at the Country Club Demographic":

And with one exception those are JUST Americans (one Canadian) and I'm missing some obvious ones, besides every other nation in the world.

If you had to sit down and pick the person the most out of touch old fatcat plebian in the world would pick it would probably be "I bet Mitt Romney is so out of touch he thinks Jack Nicklaus is the greatest athlete ever".

Bad ideas, bad messenger -- we know which one the GOP will blame by the Wednesday after the election, if not (cough STENCH cough) before:

Public criticism of Mitt Romney’s race for the White House has risen
sharply, with six in 10 Americans expressing a negative opinion of how
he’s handling his campaign and a majority responding unfavorably to his
comments on people who don’t pay income taxes.

He's pretty much terminal, the "stench" is his putrification. Mitt Romney has been successfully (in large part by his own personality and actions) as being un-caffeinated Donald Trump, just as crazy, disconnected, and assholish. Romney fell right into the trap the Obama campaign set for him, scratch that, thanks to the tea-baggers he jumped into it feet first.

You do not come back from that -- now he is literally praying that events he has no control over will save him (and I don't mean poor job numbers like +75k, but numbers like minus 100k or more, or a massive Obama mistake, not just some edit the GOP tries to make one, those by now just fit into the Romney is a lying sack of shit narrative). It isn't going to come from the debates.

People DO NOT LIKE MITT ROMNEY, in fact most hold him in contempt, that is going to be people's perception going into the debates -- unless he completely abandons his base (thereby pissing them off royally) and comes into the debate as a completely new AND authentic person (impossible) he will lose all three of them ... and badly.

Well that should about do it then. The statement of the old Iowa pol about what Ryan will have to do in 2016 has been taken to heart...in 2012.

Though Ryan had already decided to distance himself from the floundering Romney campaign, he now feels totally uninhibited. Reportedly, he has been marching around his campaign bus, saying things like, “If Stench calls, take a message” and “Tell Stench I’m having finger sandwiches with Peggy Noonan and will text him later.”

Paul Ryan stood by helplessly, and in apparent pain, as Mitt Romney
strayed from campaign talking points on President Obama’s tax record
during a joint “reset” rally today in Ohio.

In the midst of remarks ridiculing the president’s handling of the
economy, Romney said: “I admit this, he has one thing he did not do in
his first four years — he’s said he’s going to do in the next four
years, which is to raise taxes.”During the primaries, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul offered a very different view of the presidents record, when she told the L.A. Times: “President Obama has raised taxes 19 times.”

As a resident of Iowa I've posted on here a few times about "Iowa's Shame" Steve King. King, who has represented the extremely conservative northwest corner of Iowa for years has seen himself in a reconfigured district for 2012. As a result more voters close to metropolitan and far more progressive Omaha/Council Bluffs and Des Moines mean he has a real Democratic challenger, Christie Vilsack.

But there is generally one area that even the far-right and far-left agree -- naturally it isn't about human beings, it is about dogs. Steve King is so dumb and thuggish he defends dog fighting.
Even in the most conservative household that would be unpopular.

Four Iowa television stations are refusing to air a TV ad from an animal welfare political group that criticizes U.S. Rep. Steve King for opposing federal legislation that would ban people from taking children to animal fights.
Officials with KCCI-TV and WHO-TV in Des Moines, WOI-TV in West Des Moines and KCAU-TV in Sioux City today confirmed they have rejected the ad from the Humane Society Legislative Fund, based in Washington, D.C. The fund said today it is launching a TV ad campaign opposing King’s reelection to Congress on TV stations in the Sioux City, Des Moines and Mason City television markets. King is a Republican from Kiron in northwest Iowa.

The reason is that the commercial shows the by-product of animal cruelty, the cruelty Steve King supports -- meaning they may allow the ad to run, as long as it is cleaned up...maybe with a Sarah McLachlan song?

I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. I
believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with --
with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of
Utah that solved that. We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it.

Of course, that reported "success" at the University of Utah was debunked nearly a quarter-of-a-century ago.

It was...in all the papers, it was a big big big cause celebre. It was also probably the biggest story of the year in Utah (maybe it wasn't, I didn't live there, but I bet it was top-3).

Is anyone really surprised that Mitt Romney’s latest federal tax return shows most of his charitable giving has gone to the Mormon church and related organizations?
These includes Mormon organizations that in recent years cannot charitably be described as anything but homophobic—whether funneling big bucks into state ballot measures to oppose gay marriage or into ‘ re-education’ to turn gays into straights. These stances are not very different from the Catholic Church, which, like Mormons, also opposed the Equal Right Amendment for women.

Naturally, nobody but us "weird" liberals thinks this raises a question of how Romney would actually govern.

After Monday night’s game debacle , it safe to say that we haven’t seen the head of an organization damage their brand this badly since Nancy Brinker let Karen Handel herd the Komen cash cow onto the killing floor. That turned out real well now, didn’t it?

The image of Chris Christie sitting on anything makes me think this only involves a lot of paper getting all wet and crinkled.

New Jersey currently suffers the second-highest foreclosure rate in the nation, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. However, WABC-TV's Jim Hoffer reports that more than a year after the Homekeeper Program was launched, the state has doled out only $4 million, of $300 million available, to 498 families -- while nearly 2,000 applicants have been denied.

It's nice to have lifetime appointments, lack experience in politics and decide that money equals speech, and with Citizen's United decision in 2010 that is jut what the Supreme Court's conservative block did -- shake your head more Alito.
Behold, the value of money over discourse.

Kathy Kiely, managing editor of the Sunlight Foundation...said around 78% of outside spending in 2012 – $365m of the total $465m – could be attributed to the "Citizens United effect"...
Of $465m of outside money spent so far in 2012 $460.8m comes from Super Pacs, corporations and other groups which do not have to register as political groups. An additional $4.1m comes from "electioneering communications": advertisements or political activities that focus on issues and policies – the oil industry, for example – and encourage voters to support a candidate without mentioning any politicians by name.

And what value it has produced, a series of slanders and cribbed edits that truly give us want any free society could want, more money allowing more screaming in defense of those with money.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The poll, conducted by polling pollsters Zogby, showed that NASCAR's loyal fan base are actually in Barack Obama's corner, so to speak. The crosstabs show a small sampling, but those who identify as NASCAR fans prefer the president.

If Obama is leading among PGA-Tour pros then I'll really know we're headed for a landslide.

Mitt Romney's idea for how to limit potential safety hazards on airplanes:

“I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I
don’t think she knows just how worried some of us were,” Romney said.
“When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly,
there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the
aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t
know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very
dangerous. And she was choking and rubbing her eyes. Fortunately, there
was enough oxygen for the pilot and copilot to make a safe landing in
Denver. But she’s safe and sound.”

Mitt, you don't know why they don't let the windows open in pressurized jets flying at 30,000 plus feet?

I know -- and hope -- it is unlikely to happen, but considering Mitt is still within single-digits and could conceivably win under unlikely but still possible scenarios it is amazing the amount of dirt being shoveled upon his not yet corpse:

If the Republican ticket loses in November, the rush by Mr. Ryan and
other 2016 hopefuls to position themselves for the Iowa caucuses “is
going to look like Best Buy the night after Thanksgiving,” said Craig
Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa.
“I hate to say this, but if Ryan wants to run for national office again,
he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him.”

THAT. IS. BRUTAL.

Oh, that part about Iowa in 2016...it is going to be wide-open and for an Iowan almost unbearable on both sides. Starting about September 2015 we'll have about 30 minutes of political commercials a night and we'll have to unplug, or turn off, the phones at night.

James Murdoch will be given more responsibility over News Corp's U.S.
television operations more than a year after he became a central figure
in the company's telephone hacking scandal in the UK, two sources
familiar with the matter said.

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said Sunday that Mitt Romney's
longstanding strategy of making this election a referendum on President
Obama's first term will fail.

"They need to focus on the next four years," he said. "If this
election is just about the last four years, that's a muddy verdict. Bush
was president during the financial meltdown. The Obama team has turned
that around pretty well. The Clinton speech at the convention was very
important in that way -- how horrible was it four years ago."

I'm going to avoid anything from Dick Morris because if he's changed his usual reign of error I will start to get overly worried.

I don't know by now how many factors of doubling down the Romney
Campaign has gone, but most of his spinners and subordinates think the
whole 47% moochers lines is "totally" the way to go. For example, Bay
Buchanan, the might-as-well be twin of brother Pat showed up on Meet the
Press and spoke thusly:

Mitt
Romney adviser Bay Buchanan reiterated the Republican campaign’s belief
that half of Americans are dependent upon government, during an
appearance on Meet Thee Press on Sunday. “We are in perilous times in
this country. We are looking at financial ruin. We are looking at
dependency. We’re a nation of people dependent on their government, and
that is what Barack Obama gives us,”

This matches the language of bi-partisan booze peddler Mary Matalin a few days later than called everybody that isn't paying "income tax" a "parasite" which makes Romney and Ryan exterminators. Good thing Ryan is talking about "death panels" again.

As fires blazed and protesters danced in the ruined compound of a vanquished jihadist militia, I watched as the citizens of the Libyan city of Benghazi staged a dramatic display of raw people power.Numbed by the murder of an American ambassador in their city, furious with jihadist militias lording it over them and frustrated by a government too chaotic and intimidated to react, ordinary Benghazians took matters into their own hands.

Elsewhere in the world jihadists staged fiery attacks on foreign targets. In Libya they were sent running by people power. A rally called to Rescue Benghazi on Friday night became the launch pad for a spontaneous retaking of the streets, and more – a retaking of the soul that saw this city become the cradle of last year's Arab spring revolution.

Ansar al-Sharia militia, blamed by many for the killing of ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his diplomats had last week deployed anti-aircraft guns around their Benghazi compound, fearing attack from drones and US warships. But the attack, when it came, was from a very different direction. Civilian. Unarmed. And with nothing more than the desperation of a population staring anarchy in the face.

The next decade and give World Nut Daily another round of...well, okay it would make no difference for World Nut Daily.

When the former Massachusetts governor released his official 2011 tax return
Friday, he (or whoever actually filled out the form) appeared to have
mistakenly referred to the United States as a foreign country."If you have a foreign address," the tax return instruction reads,
"also complete spaces below." In the space below, under "foreign
country name," Romney's form reads "USA."

Several tax preparers confirmed to Whispers that "USA" should not
have been written in that line—assuming the Republican presidential
nominee is actually a citizen of the United States.

No word from Donald Trump yet if he wants to see the original long form version of the tax return.

To be fair, Romney thought his tax returns were really just about where his money is.

I'm sure this is a true statement from Orange Glow (the original and still the orange-ist) but considering the popularity of taxing the rich more it sure makes great optics for Democrats hoping for power in the House.

John Boehner: GOP Won't Agree To Raise Taxes On Wealthy, Even If Obama Wins Reelection

Despite the GOP's widespread efforts, early voting is kicking off now in about half the country.
Given the last couple weeks the GOP has had, I cannot imagine they are terribly excited by the prospect...well, even less.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Nielsen estimates
that there are roughly 289.7 million TV viewers in the United States.
Of those viewers, 14.7 percent watched Biden’s speech on the final night
of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.

President Obama came in second with 13.7 percent. Mitt Romney ranked
third with 12.5 percent. And former President Bill Clinton came in
fourth with 10.9 percent.

Mitt Romney’s campaign handed out $112,500 in bonuses to four of its top staffers, according to new disclosure records filed Thursday.
Richard Beeson, Romney’s national political director, received a $37,500 payment on Aug. 31, in addition to his monthly salary of $13,750, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.
In addition, campaign manager Matt Rhoades, policy advisor Lanhee Chen and communications director Gail Gitcho each received $25,000 payments on the same date, filings show. The trio are also paid at the same rate as Beeson, which works out to an annual equivalent of $165,000.

Meanwhile, this businessman who thinks he is superqualified because of his business background suddenly has a lot less money to spend then he thought for the rest of the campaign.

“Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,” she said. “This is hard and, you know, it’s an important thing that we’re doing right now and it’s an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.”

Forget Rafalca, when this election's over, Ann Romney is going to require a 'therapy gimp'.

It is still possible, though unlikely that Mitt Romney will be elected President. Some people, and this includes President Obama, seem to think that a Romney loss will cause a diminished far-right.
To which I respond, yeah...that'll happen.
Because 2016 is gonna see the re-launch of this guy:

In a conference call with fellow evangelicals earlier this week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) shared his thoughts on the origins of the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state. Rather than tracing the idea to the nation’s founders, Perry warned of a more nefarious source: Satan...
“Somehow or another there’s this, ya know, steel wall, this iron curtain or whatever you want to call it between the church and people of faith and this separation of church and state is just false on its face”

Well, I've seen a lot of erroneous and flatulent interpretations of the "Founders" from the Right (see Barton, David) but they always come in the shape of putting folks like Madison and Jefferson way up high on the "pedestal of freedom" they built -- high enough to see all the slaves they owned.
So I guess it is refreshing to hear of Madison being called an agent of Satan. That certainly is a new one.
Rick Perry 2016.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Mitt Romney has had a light campaign schedule lately. He held his first rally in five days on Wednesday night.

Obama maintains a more vigorous campaign schedule AND is also President.

The rest of the cited article states that Romney has managed to create a bottleneck on his spending which coupled with his not working too hard -- all while starting to crater as a candidate -- that shows that he'd be a terrible President for even more reasons -- he kind of does not care much.

This sort of sucks for a few other reasons -- now when they lose, and it certainly seems likely now -- the GOP will not deal with its real problem (way too far right) but blame the candidate again. That was probably going to be the case anyway, but now they'll just blame the messenger...again.

The Romney campaign is skidding along on its axles and scraping its muffler. Soon it will be down to the dog on the roof....
But as I have been saying for a while now, Mitt Romney is a deeply flawed candidate who got the Republican nomination by beating a ludicrously weak field. Don’t believe me?
You know who came in second? Rick Santorum. Newt Gingrich was third, and Ron Paul was fourth. That’s not a field; that’s a therapy group.

Zing!
But the best part is this part and I agree with it.

And there is another thing that troubles me even though some dismiss it as trivial. I am still bothered by Romney attacking that gay kid and cutting off his hair with a pair of scissors when they were in prep school.
A ghetto kid does that and he gets booked for assault with a deadly weapon. But what does the son of a governor get? A law degree from Harvard.
Republicans accuse Obama of wanting to wage class warfare, but who is more class conscious than Romney? I can summarize what Romney said to a bunch of wealthy donors at a May fundraiser: America is divided between the deserving rich and bums who want a handout. Vote for me, and I’ll keep you rich. Thank you very much. Enjoy the chicken.

"Why yes, the health insurance reform that Obama launched was inspired by my plan in Massachusetts and it has worked really really well, it's a great program and it was all my idea.
But we cannot have nice things like that in the nation as a whole and it's called Obamacare, so I planned on fucking the country over about it the FIRST CHANCE I GET. FUCK IT, AND FUCK YOU AMERICA -- oh and vote for me!"

A spot featuring only the Israeli prime minister talking about Iran is set to hit the airwaves in select Florida markets tomorrow, a media tracking source confirms.
The spot is the work of a c4 called Secure America Now - which, thanks to its tax status, doesn't have to disclose its donors.
A Republican involved with the project said its airing in Miami, West Palm Beach and Ft. Myers. The flight is ultimately going to be $1 million, the official said - a media-tracking source said about $400,000 has been placed so far.

How especially wise it truly is for a foreign leader, be it an ally or not, to advertise in the U.S. so as to have us get another war on.
But I guess with Romney as the nominee Republicans are for outsourcing even American xenophobia.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

"It's unfortunate when something gets misinterpreted like this or it gets taken out of context because if you really do listen to everything he does say, he's talking about what we're facing in America today," Romney said in the interview.
According to Buzzfeed, the Romney campaign uploaded video of the interview to YouTube with the title "Ann Romney to FOX31: Mitt Doesn't Disdain the Poor" before quickly removing it.

Marc Leder the mega-millionaire who hosted the party that is the equivalent of a Mitt Romney sex tape has been defended by members of his class from charges of having sex parties...in a way that confirms, he's been having sex parties:

They
suggest that the reports of debauchery were exaggerated. They admit
that there were barely clad pretty women dancing at the party. But they
don't understand the blow-back to Marc over the activities of his guests, who are consenting adults. As one friend noted, "Marc was not in the pool."

Another friend sympathized with
his plight. He said, "His wife cheats on him with the 23 year old
tennis pro, so he lets off a little steam. Yet, he is the one that is
vilified."

"Letting off steam" didn't work as an excuse for Abu Ghraib, afraid it doesn't really work in this instance either.

“There are makers and takers, there are producers and there are parasites,” she said. “Americans can distinguish between those who have produced and paid in through no fault of their own and because of Obama’s horrible policies who cannot get a job or are underemployed. That’s what the campaign is about.”

"Parasites"?

That will really turn this around for Mittens -- are you or are you not a PARASITE?!

But see how exited Mitt is to be describing the working conditions they almost wish an American government could impose:

When I was back in my private equity days, we went to China to buy a
factory there. It employed about 20,000 people. And they were almost all
young women between the ages of about 18 and 22 or 23. They were saving
for potentially becoming married.

And they work in these huge factories, they made various uh, small
appliances. And uh, as we were walking through this facility, seeing
them work, the number of hours they worked per day, the pittance they
earned, living in dormitories with uh, with little bathrooms at the end
of maybe 10, 10 room, rooms. And the rooms they have 12 girls per room.

Three bunk beds on top of each other. You've seen, you've seen them?
(Oh...yeah, yeah!) And, and, and around this factory was a fence, a huge
fence with barbed wire and guard towers. And, and, we said gosh! I
can't believe that you, you know, keep these girls in! They said, no,
no, no. This is to keep other people from coming in.

As you might expect one of the awesome things about the Mitt Romney non-sex Tape is its incredible logical inconsistency. My favorite contradictions:

The president's foreign policy, in my opinion, is formed in part by a perception he has that his magnetism, and his charm, and his persuasiveness is so compelling that he can sit down with people like Putin and Chavez and Ahmadinejad and that they'll find that we're such wonderful people that they'll go on with us, and they'll stop doing bad things. And it's an extraordinarily naive perception.

"My own view is that if we win on November 6th, there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We'll see capital come back and we'll see — without actually doing anything — we'll actually get a boost in the economy."

"My own view is that if we win on November 6th, there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We'll see capital come back and we'll see — without actually doing anything — we'll actually get a boost in the economy."

Monday, September 17, 2012

At the dinner, Romney often stuck to familiar talking points. But there were moments when he went beyond the familiar campaign lines. Describing his family background, he quipped about his father, "Had he been born of Mexican parents, I'd have a better shot of winning this."

Other than the technical response..."HE WAS!" I imagine this statement would have gone over REALLY well if he'd said it today before them, really well indeed.

Rep. Todd Akin’s wife, Lulli Akin, says the Republican Party’s attempts
to push her husband out of the Missouri Senate race — over his false
assertion that women who are raped rarely get pregnant — are like rape
itself.

Apparently when your only foreign policy credits consists of misnaming countries, being condescending, offending the locals and finally saying "Yes, Bibi, I agree completely" it will cause you some difficulties.

[Harvey] Weinstein (the movie mogul) told the BBC: “I witnessed Prime Minister saying to a group of people, myself included, that Mitt Romney had that unique distinction of uniting all of England against him with his various remarks. On behalf of my love of England, I have to support the President [Barack Obama] who is anything but making faux-pas.”

Romney promised to bring back the relationship the U.S. and U.K. used to have, apparently he was thinking of the one that existed in the 80s, the 1780s.

But, and this is rich, Mitt won't let him go because Mitt is such a mensch:

A Romney official explained: "Mitt is a sticker - he stays with you. He
had a reputation at Bain for sticking with people. They made a bad
investment, he hung with them. … None of this is going to be fixed. This
is the organization, and this is who Mitt is betting on to win. There
aren't going to be further changes."

Yeah, the man is world-reknown for not firing the people who fucking FIRE MASSIVE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE.

Having observed that the balance of American voters have agreed that "eh, it could be worse" when they look at the Presidential race, the Romney Campaign apparently spent the weekend deciding to change strategy. Losing can do that.
But having decided the economy will not be enough to give them victory, like a campaign full of Baldrick's they have a cunning plan:

Ryan was chaffing at Boston constraining him from talking about and defending his policy ideas from Democratic attacks. Ryan wanted to be "unleashed," the Republican said.
And Ryan’s latest campaign swing offers the clearest indication that he’s gotten his wish.

On Friday at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., Ryan offered a new gambit on offense, attacking Obama on social issues and income inequality in one fell swoop.“’We’re all in this together’ – it has a nice ring,” Ryan said, quoting a frequent Obama line. “For everyone who loves this country, it is not only true but obvious,” he said. “Yet how hollow it sounds coming from a politician who has never once lifted a hand to defend the most helpless and innocent of all human beings, the child waiting to be born.”

When all else fails -- at least pull out the "abortion card" -- yeah, that'll convince that handful of wavering independents.
One gets the feeling this plan was come up by the same adviser who blames Obama for abandoning Czechoslovakia.

He is, of course, by default a "serious" person in the way the even more deluded (but significantly less influential in his own country) Ahmadinejad can never be.

But I'm pretty confident no matter how many times folks like Mitt Romney, Bill Kristol and others blow Bibi, others are not at all comfortable at this point in getting involved in yet another war with a foe that can really fuck shit up if we kick that hornet's nest...never mind the ten-dollar a gallon gas, the widespread death is a real turnoff unless you are a fucking sociopath.

But it gets even more repulsive when a leader of another country, even one which is an ally, comes here, sticks their nose in OUR domestic politics and demands the WE go to war against another country. There's ample reason why more than two-thirds of America's Jewish voters favor Obama -- but the fact he will not go for Netanyahu and the Neo-Cons war fantasies is among them.

You can do poll after poll after poll and while people may be concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon, they do not want a war -- and that is the special gift that Netanyahu is demanding. And the fact that he comes into our country and waves the sabre, while getting what will undoubtedly be a knob-job from Gregory makes it even worse.

Rick Santorum is out of office and able to devote all of his "considerable" energies to being a professional talking head:

Former presidential candidate Rick Santorum attacked the media and
"smart people" for not being on the side of conservatives in a speech to
the Values Voter Summit on Saturday.

"We will never have the
media on our side, ever, in this country," Santorum, a former
Pennsylvania senator, told the audience at the Omni Shoreham hotel. "We
will never have the elite, smart people on our side."

Yes, hard to believe the "smart" people oppose a party that has a membership of Rick Santorums in it.

How all these right-wing operatives and assholes who've been making cracks about Obama and teleprompters seem to want to push the theme of how awesome a debater the same guy is so as to lower expectations for Romney.

Naturally, people have missed the point of Obama's rather ambivalent treatment of the Egyptian government by saying they were neither an ally nor enemy -- contrasted to how he treated the government of Libya.

Well, the fact of the matter is the Libyan government immediately condemned and took action to arrest people (granted it may have "round up the usual suspects" aspect). Egypt's government on the other hand did neither.

Eighteen months into the office he reupholstered the two chairs in his sitting area. (“The chairs were kind of greasy. I was starting to think, Folks are going to start talking about us.”) Then he swapped out the antique coffee table for a contemporary one, and the bust of Winston Churchill lent to Bush by Tony Blair...

Advisers to Mitt Romney on Thursday defended his sharp
criticism of President Obama and said that the deadly protests sweeping
the Middle East would not have happened if the Republican nominee were
president.

“There’s a pretty compelling story that if you had a President Romney, you’d be in a different situation,”
Richard Williamson, a top Romney foreign policy adviser, said in an
interview. “For the first time since Jimmy Carter, we’ve had an American
ambassador assassinated.”

So says a man who served in an Administration which saw Pentagon itself attacked -- or perhaps he has ignored all bumper-stickers and forgotten?

Unemployment
in Greece is going from bad to worse, as official figures released by
the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) on Thursday showed a 44
percent increase in the number of jobless in this year’s second quarter
compared to the same period in 2011.

The crisis engulfing Greece
has deepened after two of the governing coalition parties resisted
demands from Brussels for 50,000 public sector job cuts, and unions
called a general strike for later this month.

Like many of you, I suppose, I got an email this morning from "Beyonce Knowles" entitled "I Don't Usually Email You".

Um, no crap there Beyonce. You may keep emailing me if you'd like, of course, and if you happen to run into Scarlet Johanssen, Halle Berry, Natalie Portman, or Eva Longoria they are free to email me as well.

But really shouldn't we keep this just to Chatroulette.com as we have all these months?

After all, just running for it takes one hell of a lot of self-belief and arrogance (but only the black guy gets called out for it, amazingly). But even amongst the rich history of narcissism and opportunism of presidential candidates and Presidents (LBJ, Nixon, Polk, etc.) Romney may take the cake:

One Republican official advising Romney's campaign on foreign policy and
national security issues painted a picture of a Romney campaign more
focused on ensuring Romney's evening statement made it into morning news
stories than on waiting for details about what had happened.

This official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid
angering Romney's campaign, said that as word of violence spread,
campaign aides late Tuesday watched tweets coming out of the U.S.
Embassy in Cairo that were criticizing the filmmaker rather than
condemning the attackers, and saw an opportunity to criticize Obama.

Romney, like most projectionists, is at his most hypocritical when repeating his mantra -- "America's the greatest, I'll never apologize for America" etc. Here he is ACTIVELY hoping for disaster so as to score political points for himself.

That's sort of like Thomas Dewey, FDR's opponent in the 1944 election rooting for D-Day to end badly, which criticizing the Omaha beach landings while they were occurring and encountering difficulty...which Thomas Dewey most certainly did not do.

Reagan told a Los Angeles press conference, "This is a difficult day for
all of us Americans. . . . It is time for us . . . to stand united. It
is a day for quiet reflection . . . when words should be few and
confined essentially to our prayers."

I am obviously not a Reagan fan, but that is how a competent politician does it.

...earlier this evening the Times ran a story entitled “Behind
Romney’s Decision to Attack Obama on Libya.” The byline was David
Sanger and Ashley Parker. The big news out of the story was that Romney
himself had been the driver of last night’s decision making.

I'm used to self-immolations during primary season, but now for two straight elections a major candidate has destroyed themselves through their own stupidity and delusion. Fortunately it has been the Republicans.

The tragi-comedy of Romney trying to gnaw the foot he stuck knee-deep in his mouth has been discussed around the internet in great depth.

But the the absurdity beneath the tragedy of the protesting and deaths is broader than just Willard.

Let us start with the film (and I'm stretching the definition) "The Innocence of Muslims", it appears that not only can we not figure out who was behind this project -- better named "The Protocols of the Elders of the Birth of a Nation" -- but it appears it was a fraud in every sense of the word.

A statement released on the behalf of the 80 cast and crew members ... indicates that they are not happy with the film and were
misled by the producer.

"The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and feel taken
advantage of by the producer. We are 100% not behind this film and were
grossly misled about its intent and purpose," the statement says. "We
are shocked by the drastic re-writes of the script and lies that were
told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have
occurred."

And then there is Senator Jon Kyle of Arizona, who demonstrated there is no subject that Republicans cannot bring back to their other favorite topic...rape.

I know mockery of #MoneyBooBoo and the rest of his compatriots eases some of the anger, but they still might win. Which will be the greatest tragi-comedy of them all.

I don't know what is more distasteful, Romney's ham-handed effort to exploit tragedy or his commission of political malpractice that is galling. Okay, since they both hurt him politically.
Maybe it's that I am in agreement with Mark Halperin.

I'm going to need Dick Morris' proclamation of Romney's performance being a masterstroke that will settle things back to some semblance of normality.